If you want to create identical services on numerous hosts or hostgroups, but would like to exclude some hosts from the definition, this can be accomplished by preceding the host or hostgroup with a ! symbol.

The same rules as the one used for the services may be used for the service escalations definitions. Specify several hosts, hosts from hosts groups, all hosts, and hosts exclusions apply on service escalations.

If you want to create service escalations for all the services of a particular host, you can use a wildcard in the service_description property. The definition below will create a service escalation for all the services of the host HOST1.

To create service dependencies for services with the same service_description that are assigned to multiple hosts, you can specify multiple hosts in the host_name and/or dependent_host_name properties. In the example below, service SERVICE2 on hosts HOST3 and HOST4 will be dependent of service SERVICE1 on hosts HOST1 and HOST2.

If you want to create service dependencies for services with the same service_description that are assigned to all hosts in one or more hosts groups, you can use the hostgroup_name and/or dependent_hostgroup_name properties. In the example below, service SERVICE2 on all hosts in hosts groups HOSTGROUP3 and HOSTGROUP4 will be dependent on service SERVICE1 on all hosts in hostgroups HOSTGROUP1 and HOSTGROUP2.

If you want to create service dependencies for all the services assigned to a specific host, you can use a wildcard in the service_description and/or dependent_service_description properties. In the example below, all services on host HOST2 will be dependent on all services on host HOST1.

If you want to create service dependencies for several services assigned to a specific host, you can specify more than one service description in the service_description and/or dependent_service_description properties as follows:

If you want to create service dependencies for multiple services that are dependent on other services on the same host, leave the dependent_host_name and dependent_hostgroup_name properties empty. The example below assumes that hosts HOST1 and HOST2 have at least the following four services associated with them: SERVICE1, SERVICE2, SERVICE3, and SERVICE4. In this example, SERVICE3 and SERVICE4 on HOST1 will be dependent on both SERVICE1 and SERVICE2 on HOST1. Similarly, the same dependencies will exist for the corresponding services on HOTS2.

If you want to create host dependencies for several hosts, you can specify multiple hosts in the host_name and/or dependent_host_name properties. The definition below would be equivalent to creating six separate host dependencies. In the example above, hosts HOST3, HOST4 and HOST5 would be dependent upon both HOST1 and HOST2.

If you want to create host dependencies for all hosts in one or more hostgroups, you can use the hostgroup_name and /or dependent_hostgroup_name properties. In the example below, all hosts in hostgroups HOSTGROUP3 and HOSTGROUP4 would be dependent on all hosts in hostgroups HOSTGROUP1 and HOSTGROUP2.

If you want to create an hosts group that group all hosts defined in your monitored objects, you can use a wildcard in the members directive. The definition below will create an hostgroup called HOSTGROUP1 that has all hosts as members.